Let’s celebrate the lives of our dearly beloved friends, relatives and pets who have passed away.

In Latin America, it’s a sacred time of year to honor them through our memories, stories, prayers and meditations.

Like a lot of kids, I was freaked out by the concepts of death and the afterlife when I initially began to understand them. I remember my grandpa saying he believed that after we die, that’s it. No heaven, no hell. Just black nothingness. Worm food. That sure wasn’t comforting to my already delicate young mind.

Throughout my childhood, Halloween was a fun day that was all about dressing up, trick-or-treating, watching Charlie Brown and Garfield cartoon specials on TV and eating too much candy—not so much about reflecting on death. In my roaring 20s, it was a fun day that was all about dressing up, going to wild costume parties and getting wasted. The only deaths contemplated around Halloween were the ones in bloody horror flicks.

Perhaps this is why I’ve come to appreciate Latin America’s cultural rituals and customs around death. It is not viewed as scary or taboo but rather a natural passage at the end of life.

Today is Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) in Mexico and Día de Todos Santos (All Saints’ Day) here in Guatemala. Crowds gather and rockin’ parties are thrown in the graveyards (which are colorful, vibrant places, not gray and solemn like most U. S. cemeteries).

I’ll admit that I’m not totally over my fear of death, but it is something I feel more and more comfortable with as time marches on. I’ve learned from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition too, and I sometimes even contemplate my own death in meditation or savasana.

What I still resist contemplating are the deaths of my parents, close friends, life partner and especially my daughter. When I was pregnant and nearing delivery, I had a sobbing breakdown, realizing the inevitable truth that by birthing this precious, new being, I was also birthing someone who would die.

The opposite of birth is death. Unpleasant as it may be, death can come at any time, at any age, after a long or short illness, due to violent crime or an inexplicably tragic accident. This fact should make every moment of life one to be grateful for. It really is a miracle just to walk the earth.

About Michelle Margaret Fajkus

Michelle Margaret Fajkus is a free spirit and an open book. She is founder of Yoga Freedom, editor-in-chief of Lago Locos and co-creator of EnlightenEd. Michelle learned yoga from a book at age 12, found zen in California at 23 and moved to Guatemala at 29. She enjoys writing poetry, leading yoga retreats, devouring books, cooking coconut curries and baking cookies in her toaster oven. She has self-published two books and has many more in the works. She lives in Guatemala with her soul mates. Connect via Google+ or Facebook.

I can appreciate the contemplation of death, EXCEPT when I'm having nightmares about it. I just can't bear the thought of being a wandering ghost for some reason. (Then again, who's to say I'm not already?) as for these questions: I actually might be more fearful of them than actually dying! Afraid that I won't be remembered as I like, and fraud that I may be at a loss for living more fully today. Or the fear of disappointment at the end. Are we typically more afraid of what lies ahead, or what we see when we look back? I suppose my answer must be, I must let go of such questions in order to live more fully today, and not to worry what others will think of when I leave. I will have done my part, and their memories of it are up to them.